In The Press

Artificial intelligence. It’s dominating headlines with the promise of self-driving cars and virtual assistants becoming more real every day. But despite all the talk around AI, no one seems to really understand what it is or how companies can use it.

Is AI the computer that competed on Jeopardy? Or Johnny 5 from the movie Short Circuit? Will machines really take our jobs? As data volumes surge and analytic engines become more mature, has technology finally caught up with the hype?

In the past half-decade, artificial intelligence has gone from the stuff of science fiction to components of major factory floors, cognitive technology expert Neil Jacobstein said at a Singularity University event in Boston Tuesday.

Jacobstein chairs the AI & Robotics department at Singularity, the tech-driven benefit corporation that includes the likes of Google, Cisco and Deloitte among its founders.

Investment in AI has skyrocketed in recent years, with more than $3 billion in VC funds invested in cognitive technologies from 2011 to 2015. During that time, more than 100 AI companies merged or were acquired, “by the usual suspects: Alphabet, IBM, Facebook, Amazon, [and] Google,” said Jacobstein.